Double Coverage

Archives for February 2017

The big news this week came down Wednesday, when Ole Miss announced another Notice of Allegations from the NCAA detailing several major violations by the football program.

On this episode, Parrish and Logan have a long discussion about the new information (2:37), which includes alleged cash payments by boosters to prospective student-athletes. The school, which announced the violations in a lengthy YouTube video, has vowed to fight most of the allegations. It has already self-imposed a one-year bowl ban for the 2017 season.

The guys also spend a few minutes talking basketball. The MSU women have a chance to win the SEC (18:55), while the Ole Miss men have likely played themselves off the NCAA tournament bubble (21:32), although they did complete a season sweep of the Bulldogs with an overtime win Tuesday.

There’s some baseball chatter as well (23:43), with the Rebs off to a 4-0 start and MSU trying to recover from blowing a big lead in the ninth inning against Morehead State.

It might be a long shot, but Ole Miss could conceivably play its way back into the NCAA tournament conversation. On this episode, Parrish says that to do that, the Rebels need to win out (2:20). They’ve played well of late, with a pair of big comeback wins, and two things that have impressed Parrish are the play of Terence Davis and the team’s free throw shooting (5:46).

Mississippi State, on the other hand, has had trouble closing out games and needs more consistency from certain players (8:27).

On perhaps a brighter note for fans of both schools, baseball season begins Friday. Ole Miss has big expectations despite the fact that it will be leaning on several freshmen (12:05). Reigning SEC champ MSU is breaking in a new coach and is led by center fielder Jake Mangum, who might see the mound some this year (16:51).

Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze thought he finally had his staff of assistants all set, having made five offseason hires. Then defensive line coach Tray Scott left on Wednesday for the same job at Georgia.

On this episode, Parrish examines that surprising departure (2:51) and what Freeze must do now to replace Scott. Mississippi State, meanwhile, just finalized its staff with the recent hirings of quarterbacks coach Brett Elliott and tight ends coach D.J. Looney, both of whom have previous MSU ties (10:05).

Logan got to meet and visit with a couple of other new assistants earlier this week, defensive coordinator Todd Grantham and safeties coach Ron English (14:37). Grantham laid out his plan for helping improve a defense that struggled quite a bit last season.

On the hardwood, Parrish looks at the SEC standings, which are crowded behind the top few teams (17:25), and he notes that the Rebels and Bulldogs could both end up playing in the sparsely attended first round of the SEC Tournament. Ole Miss is coming off a loss to Tennessee (20:10) in which it committed too many turnovers and didn’t earn enough trips to the free throw line.

MSU came from behind to beat Tennessee last weekend but couldn’t pull the trick against Auburn on Tuesday (22:00).

Oh yeah, and a quick reminder that baseball season starts soon (25:02).

It was a relatively quiet National Signing Day on Wednesday for Ole Miss and Mississippi State, but Parrish and Logan find plenty to analyze on this episode.

The Rebels had the challenge of recruiting with the cloud of an ongoing NCAA investigation hanging over the program (2:25). No such cloud in Starkville, where Dan Mullen’s biggest signee was ex-Rebel commit Willie Gay (5:12). Speaking of big signees, MSU inked some very large offensive linemen.

There was a little bit of drama in regards to the schools going head-to-head on recruits (9:17) – witness Gay, along with Ole Miss signees D.D. Bowie and Taekion Reed, the latter of whom was once an MSU commit.

The Ole Miss class, while limited by self-imposed scholarship reductions, still addressed some needs (10:44), especially at linebacker, and Hugh Freeze likes the two offensive linemen he brought in. He also signed two quarterbacks, including a juco transfer, which could make things a bit interesting in the spring (19:45).

MSU’s class was unusually heavy on junior college players (16:17), including some with previous Division I experience.

On the hardwood, the guys recap the Rebels’ blowout win over the Bulldogs and look at what’s ahead for each squad (22:44).